Unfolder

[undyingking]

Just seen this on lj_nifty  -- it unfolds long comment threads in situ, without taking you away from the main comments page. How cool is that? (Very.)

Not sure LJ will be too keen on this, I believe they do it the way they do to save on database hits. We shall see if they respond...

(I love looking at fancy JavaScripts, it amazes what people think of making them do. See the way he's put the raw gif in?)

Comments

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

LJ won't mind, because only 0.1% of users will install it.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Good point -- lucky 0.1%!

[chrisvenus]

Well, I can't be bothered to read this but the way I *assume* it works is to rewrite the page to add the new link into it for "unfold" and then when that link is clicked it does a http requesdt to the server for the page, strips out the comments it needs and puts them in the page with magic javascript. The sensible way of doing it will only produce more server load because it is easier to read the comments and so people will do so more often.

That does of course assume they are doing it sensibly. If they're not then they are crazy. And I can't really think of any practical way to do it non-sensibly anyway. :)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

That would be the sensible way, but I think that actually it re-requests the whole of the original page as well as the newly-unfolded comments. So some room for optimization!

[queenortart.livejournal.com]

For the geekily challenged who really really want this can you explain in non geeky terms what to do with it!

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Firstly, you have to be using the Firefox web browser -- rather than Internet Explorer or whatever.

Secondly, you have to have the Greasemonkey extension to Firefox installed.

Then, go to the link above, click on the Download the script' link, and follow the instructions.

This may seem like a bit much just to get unfolding LJ comments, and indeed it would be. But Firefox is a much better browser than IE anyway, in terms of features, security, flexibility and so on: and Greasemonkey has a myriad other uses too.

[queenortart.livejournal.com]

I have Firefox on the tappy machine (laptop) but I'm not allowed to use on the work machine cos they* don't want to have to support another program.

*They equals our IT man Matt who seems out of his depth with some stuff that even I am familiar with!

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

IT people less technically competent than oneself are the worst -- they make you feel so frustrated and powerless!